Christiane Koch

Coherent control of ultracold systems

Location: Hörsaal ATime: Monday 19.10.2009, 14h c.t.

Ultracold matter brought quantum effects onto the macroscopic scale, and ultrafast lasers made quantum dynamical phenomena observable in real-time. Bringing the two together seems natural and holds the promise of employing quantum interferences in an unprecedented way. Photoassociation of a molecule from two ultracold atoms provides an optimal framework for the merger. Combining it with coherent control where the potential energy surfaces governing the dynamics can be 'shaped', a general route toward stable ultracold molecules is obtained. The same set of techniques that are employed to create ultracold molecules via short-pulse photoassociation allow to probe two-body correlations in ultracold gases. Finally, control of a quantum systems might need to be restricted to a subspace of the total Hilbert space. This is of particular relevance for applications in quantum information processing.